Hi Russavia,
Just a quick response to your points:
1. Yes. Gift Aid isn't quite the same as tax deductibility. To take
Wikipedia's example, when Mr Smith donates £100 to a charity, the charity
gets £100 from him, plus an extra £25 from the government. It's more
complex than this - not everyone is eligible - but broadly this is the case.
2. Probably not. See
http://www.charitycommission.gov.uk/frequently-asked-questions/faqs-about-r…
.
3. I'm not sure where the 50% figure came from, but it is incorrect. The
correct figure for that year is 69%. For this past quarter, the correct
figure is even better, at 80.24%. In addition, our fundraising costs as a
percentage of total spend have dropped from 22% to 10%. If anyone wants
more information on this, our treasurer is happy to discuss it with them by
email.
4. As for the planes - it is indeed fantastic and a good example of how,
even where we may disagree, we can still all pull together to do great work
for the movement. Speaking personally, it's a shame we don't have something
similar for ships!
Richard Symonds
Wikimedia UK
0207 065 0992
Wikimedia UK is a Company Limited by Guarantee registered in England and
Wales, Registered No. 6741827. Registered Charity No.1144513. Registered
Office 4th Floor, Development House, 56-64 Leonard Street, London EC2A 4LT.
United Kingdom. Wikimedia UK is the UK chapter of a global Wikimedia
movement. The Wikimedia projects are run by the Wikimedia Foundation (who
operate Wikipedia, amongst other projects).
*Wikimedia UK is an independent non-profit charity with no legal control
over Wikipedia nor responsibility for its contents.*
On 21 May 2014 12:22, Russavia <russavia.wikipedia(a)gmail.com> wrote:
Hi all,
A couple of things popped into my head that I am unsure of, but hope
someone might be able to answer.
1) I understand that processing of UK donations in the US has significant
tax implications on the funds collected. I would imagine that the WMF
couldn't claim anywhere near the same tax relief on this income in the USA?
2) If there are tax implications, wouldn't it make more sense for the WMF
to register its own charity in the UK, thereby it could essentially take
WMUK out of the equation completely?
3) Could the fact that WMUK is currently spending approximately 50% of its
income on non-project costs[1] be partly the reason for this decision by
Sue? I understand that 3 years ago there was no staff in the UK and
something like 90% of income was spent directly on projects, and now there
are 12 staff with at the very least 50% of income being spent on
non-project activities based on reports presented for the last FDC
proposal. This could be a message that WMUK needs to trim the fat,
especially if there are more overheads that are "hidden" within programme
activity funding.
Not really sure what's going on here with the WMF, but the likelihood that
what Nemo and Mircu state is possible, but we shouldn't discount other
things as well.
But I would like to thank WMUK for sponsoring the "Airliners" project on
Commons,[2] which will see over 200,000+ aviation images being made
available via Fae's great work, and the chapters generosity. It's something
that I don't think sponsorship would have come as easily from other
sources.
Cheers
Russavia
[1]
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:FDC_portal/Proposals/2013-2014_round1/…
[2]
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Batch_uploading/Airliners
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